Monday, 30 November 2015

Winter Break!

I am finally done grading exams and ready to enjoy a much-anticipated winter break! In addition to spending time with my family and relaxing, I have a number of projects that I want to complete during the break. Here are my goals for the next month:

Finish a book review for Church History

Complete the syllabus and assignments for my spring course at UTC on "Religion in the Age of Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitefield"

Secure the rights for all the images in my forthcoming book on Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture

Write the conclusion and finish editing my book on Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture

Several notable scholars have been kind enough to read the manuscript for my forthcoming book. For the past several weeks I have been receiving comments from these scholars, and I hope to incorporate their suggestions during the next month. I have just a few more images to secure for the book, and I hope to complete the necessary paperwork within the month.

Besides finishing my book, my other major project is to put the finishing touches on a course at UTC that I will be teaching this spring. I am calling the course, "Religion in the Age of Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitefield." The course will not simply be about these leading figures, or about eighteenth-century evangelicalism. Rather, I plan on talking about religion as a whole during the so-called "Age of Reason," and how Christians responded to the culture and intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment, as well as political and economic pressures present during the eighteenth century. I have selected Sarah Osborn's Worldby Catherine Brekus, A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards by George Marsden, John Wesley: A Biography by Stephen Tomkins, and George Whitefield: America's Spiritual Founding Father by Thomas Kidd as my required texts. I will also be having the class read primary sources from these and other influential figures. It should be a fun class, and I hope it will be interesting for the students.

1 comment:

Thank you for the post. For more on church history and men like John Wesley and George Whitefield, I would like to invite you to the website for the book series, The Asbury Triptych Series. The trilogy based on the life of Francis Asbury, the young protégé of John Wesley and George Whitefield, opens with the book, Black Country. The opening novel in this three-book series details the amazing movement of Wesley and Whitefield in England and Ireland as well as its life-changing effect on a Great Britain sadly in need of transformation. Black Country also details the Wesleyan movement's effect on the future leader of Christianity in the American colonies, Francis Asbury. The website for the book series is www.francisasburytriptych.com. Please enjoy the numerous articles on the website. Again, thank you, for the post